To Drop A Stone Into Water

Sound, 2min 2s

The sound piece To Drop A Stone Into Water plays with an imaginary state in which contact with extraterrestrial creatures could actually have been established. Snippets of sound from a home movie, which dates back to the same time as the Arecibo message was broadcast, are superimposed on individual fragments of a historical documentary about an emergency operation. What is actually going on remains cryptic and seems to be characterized by both expectation and uncertainty. “I believe” is repeated like a mantra, based on FBI agent Fox Mulder’s credo “I want to believe” from the American mystery series The X-Files. To throw a stone into the water means to cause a reaction of ever larger circles on the surface of the water, while the trigger sinks to the bottom and is forgotten. We cannot currently know what effects the earthly message might have or what circles it might draw. According to legend, Orson Wells’s infamous Panic Broadcast frightened listening Americans in the 1930s because the realistic radio program made them assume an actual arrival of Martians. Whether friend or foe remains unclear, but the urgent desire to explore and search for life outside of Earth represents one of the greatest mysteries, whose eerie nature fuels fears and hopes at the same time.